Hollywood films benefit Hindi movies

Contrary to popular perception,English movies dont eat into the profit of Hindi films but actually increase the cinema-viewing audience.

Over the last couple of years,Hollywood films have fared well at the Indian box-office and got phenomenal collections. This can be attributed to big film franchises going the 3D way and luring viewers to theatres. These movies also work for the consumers as they offer something new. I personally feel that the presence of Hollywood films,especially 3D movies in India,is really helpful as it works towards increasing the cinema-viewing audience at large. This number has actually increased two-fold in the last six years.

Hollywood movies dont eat into the profit of Hindi films. On the contrary,they attract more viewers to the theatres and it benefits bothEnglish as well as Hindi films. Obviously,the effect is visible only after two to three weeks and its too premature to come to a consensus on the basis of only the first weeks collections. For instance,in the first week of July,Transformers was released along with Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap and Delhi Belly. And it worked wonders for all the three films. That trend is now continuing with Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part Two that released last week. And with the release of Singham next week,it is only going to benefit that space. It works this way: if you are going to the theatre to watch a movie and if its tickets are not available,then you will watch the second movie. But the next week you will definitely return to watch the first movie that you earlier missed out. So on a larger level,it is benefitting the audience as well as the films.

It would be wrong to say that Indian filmmakers are wary of releasing their movies along with Hollywood films. If that would have been the case then a ZNMD would have never been released along with a Harry Potter.

Multiplexes also have a crucial role in widening the reach of Hollywood films. Earlier,there were only few theatres in the metros that screened English movies. But now with the advent of multiplexes,English movies have got a bigger and better market and more visibility. They not only offer more variety to viewers in terms of having multiple shows of different movies but Hollywood movies are now also reaching out to Tier II and III cities. At such places the audience can now enjoy dubbed films.

Another thing that has worked in the favour of English films is the advent of Hollywood studios like Fox,Warner Bros etc. These studios market their films very well. Cases in point are movies like Gullivers Travel,which was released last year,and Transformers 3 that hit the theatres early this month. Both films were very well marketed. This generates interest and translates into good box-office collections.

Having said that,I still believe that there has been an upsurge in Hollywood movies performance at the Indian box-office thanks to the heavy investments made by filmmakers and studios in 3D films. Abroad,studios are capitalising on the 3D wave and are actually releasing big franchises using this technology. Next year,movies like Titanic and Star Wars will be released in 3D. This wave is only going to benefit cinema at large.

As told to Rinky Kumar